Cricket bad boy Alex Hales comes good to take giant step towards fulfilling his potential
Hales #Hales
Nothing like a reformed character. Having taken the knocks, they want to make the most of their second chance. Both Ben Stokes and Alex Hales looked into the abyss after their long night inside and outside a Bristol nightclub, yet have emerged as match-winners for England.
Hales has arms as long and strong as Kevin Pietersen but, until he reformed his character, not the same ability to maximise his qualities. He could have become England’s Test opener, partnering Alastair Cook, but got no further than averaging 27 in his 11 Tests. In this World Cup however, at the mature age of 33, his focus entirely on the white ball, Hales has begun to strike superlatively.
The side that hits more sixes normally wins a T20 international two times out of three, because they have built the platform for fearless hitting: it has ever been thus in this format, with the percentage growing to 71 per cent in this calendar year.
India struck seven sixes, Hardik Pandya – of similar physique to Hales – five of them. Hales hit seven of his own, off pace then spin, after surviving his first ball when he outside-edged a single to point. As Jos Buttler weighed in with three sixes of his own, England won that contest 10-7, and sealed a semi-final victory that could hardly have been more emphatic.
It is in those earliest moments that Hales is vulnerable. It was India’s left-armer Arshdeep Singh who provoked that false defensive stroke. At Melbourne in Sunday’s final, Pakistan will have a taller, quicker and more dangerous left-arm swinger in Shaheen Shah Afridi, probably bowling the first over, and it might be better for England if Jos Buttler takes him and Hales is not exposed.
Hales first emerged as a Nottinghamshire red-ball batsman, although he played his last game of first-class cricket for them in September 2017, before travelling round the franchises, like Barbados Tridents and Duronto Rajshahi in Bangladesh, Islamabad United and Karachi Kings, and two IPL teams, but above all Sydney Thunder, which gave him the local knowledge of Adelaide so that he could bring those long levers to bear.
As an apprentice at Trent Bridge he was closely observed by Nottinghamshire’s senior batsman Mark Wagh when Hales was still in his teens. During the 2008 season, Wagh noted in his diary ‘Pavilion to crease and back’: “During a stoppage in the second-team game last week, three of the guys lined up three bananas and on the whistle tried to see them off as quickly as possible. Alex Hales won in a time of 53 seconds. Brilliant.”
Later that same season Wagh noted how Hales could rise to an occasion: “This evening newcomer Alex Hales organised the team meal. He was a tad nervous, to say the least. It’s an unforgiving audience when it comes to food… Alex did well, though, and made a very acceptable post-meal speech.” As he did again when presented with the player of the match award in Adelaide.
His England Test career, from 2015 to 2016, did not work out: he batted too cautiously, which those long arms were not built to do. Hales tried hard to leave balls outside off stump, and had a modest strike-rate of 43 per 100 balls, whereas if he were playing now under Stokes and Brendon McCullum, he might not succeed but he wouldn’t half give it a thrash in the process.
So white-ball it was, and of the dozen teams he has represented in 20-over cricket (other than England), Sydney Thunder has been the one that mattered most. Hales has scored 1,502 runs for them, at 36, with 12 scores of 50 or more in his 45 innings. On true Australian pitches he learned how he could take a step to the legside during the powerplay, when the only two fielders allowed outside the semi-circle were legside, and drive or lever the ball over the in-field on the off.
It was 14 years ago that Hales won his banana competition. It took a major injury to Jonny Bairstow when he was playing golf; and age to focus his concentration when in the field; and the retirement of England’s white-ball captain Eoin Morgan, who felt Hales had breached the bond of trust after his second conviction for using recreational drugs; and the wise decision of England’s director of cricket Rob Key to recall him. But Hales is fulfilling himself at last, and might win a bigger competition on Sunday.
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